The Faery Prince
by Shaggy the Cat
Summary: Life isn't easy when you're a teenager - especially when your uncle can see faeries, your best friends are insane, and the love of your life happens to be a snake-skinned faery prince. Oh, and you've just been caught up in a war between the two Fey Courts. SnakexOC, slight RonaldxOC. Rated for Sexual Content, Language, Violence/Gore, and Just Because.


Black clouds threatened a downpour as Haley made her way up the sidewalk back to the apartment she shared with her uncle. Hopefully Thistle and Hycanthine had paid a visit to the bowl of milk she'd left beneath her bedroom window. She hadn't seen her little faery friends in a while, not since Thistle had revealed herself two years ago to William, who had convinced himself it was a hallucination and had blamed Grell for spiking his coffee. Ronald had not had anything to say on the matter except laughing hysterically until he'd excused himself and dashed into the bathroom before he wet his pants. Thistle and Hycanthine were her only non-human friends - not that she had many human friends in the first place, hardly any friends at all, actually, save the stray cats that gathered around the bowl of milk she left out for the faeries every other night - and she missed them dearly.

A clap of thunder boomed, and then the rain started, coming down hard and fast. If she didn't get moving, she'd be late for her curfew. Ronald had offered to drive her home, but she'd politely refused, saying she would be able to get home before the rain even thought about starting. How could she have been so stupid? Slanted green eyes glared at her from beneath a parked car, and when she looked the creature hissed and shot away, revealing in the flash of lightning a beak, a cat-like body, and stiff, spiky fur. A spriggan, like Thistle.

By now she had reached the end of the sidewalk, and instead of turning and taking the long route she cut through the patch of woods that bordered one side of her apartment building. About another ten minutes and she'd be safe, warm, and dry with her crazy old uncle. She didn't like going through the woods much, since she often feared an attack by the People, but other than the occasional pebble or acorn she was rarely ever confronted. The absense of Thistle and Hycanthine and the appearance of the spriggan must have meant something was going on in the Unseelie Court, the Dark Faerie Court. She herself knew little of the two faery Courts, except that the Seelie Queen had ended up with a son, who would inherit the throne when his mother either died or retired, and that the Unseelie Queen was planning on taking the Seelie throne for herself. The last time they'd met, Thistle had told her of rumors spreading that the Unseelie Queen was planning on murdering her nephew, but it couldn't actually be proven unless she made a move. Someone - or something - must have attacked a faerie of the Seelie Court, and at the uneasiness of the forest she guessed it had been the Prince.

A soft moan sounded from her left, and she went to find the source of the sound. A small clearing opened in the woods a few feet away, but she could find nothing. A small glint of silver flashed as a figure nearly lying in the mud drew a jagged-edged dagger and pointed it in her direction, as though warning her to stay well away. Lightning flashed, and for a brief moment she could see the figure clearly. Silvery hair, from which poked the elegantly pointed ears that marked him as a faery, looking to be spun purely of spider's silk clung wetly to his scalp and the back of his neck, and bright emerald eyes glittered from a pale, thin face. Patches of snake's scales dotted his face, and more than likely all other parts of his body as well. He was dressed in a black-and-white-striped shirt with a high collar, open enough at the front to expose the skin of the majority of his chest, and sinfully tight-looking black pants. His feet were bare and caked in mud. A thorny broken branch jutted from his back and blood stained the ground beneath him. He grunted and struggled to push himself upright before flopping fully onto his side, as though he had not the strength to do so.

A tiny tinkling laugh erupted from behind her, and immediately she turned to see the strawberry-red Hycanthine perched on her shoulder. The sleek shape of Thistle materialized out of nowhere and rubbed against her shin for a moment before padding languidly to where the wounded faery lay, scaly tail swishing slowly from side to side. Their mouths moved but she could hear nothing. Hycanthine hovered above her shoulder, thin lacy wings creating a fine mist from the rain. Then the silver dagger dropped to the muddy ground and Thistle's tail flicked, beckoning them over.

The faery was gasping for breath now, and his mouth was stained with his own blood. If whoever had attacked him was waiting for him to get weak enough to finish him off, now was the perfect time to do it. The bright green eyes looked up at her in a pleading manner, either to help him or push the branch further in to kill him, she didn't know. The first option seemed the better one, mostly because she wouldn't be able to live with the fact of knowing that she'd indirectly killed someone. Getting a decent grip on the branch and unintentionally eliciting a groan from the silver-haired faery, she tugged sharply, and the branch slid free, the crudely-fashioned tip black with iron. She picked the thorns from the palms of her hand before giving the faery another once-over. She didn't want to have to do it, but drastic times called for drastic measures. She let one knee fall to the mud and assisted Thistle and Hycanthine in moving him from the ground to her back, then bid her faery friends farewell before heading towards the apartment building. Her uncle would know what to do. He always did.

* * *

Thomas Daniels, more commonly known as the Undertaker, seemed like a crazy old coot at first glance. In reality, he was one of those rare, only-comes-along-every-few-centuries kind of humans who could see through a faery's glamour, a sort of magic that kept them concealed in the human world. By day, he was a funeral director and mortician. By night, he dabbled in the ways of fey magic and curses, and knew how to break the ones laid on humans. At the moment when Haley walked into the apartment with the faery on her back, he was confronting a man whose pants were missing for some reason.

"Do as I said. Go jump in the channel or a body of salt water and your curse will be lifted. And don't touch a thing until you do." The man hustled past her out the door, and her uncle turned to her, yellow-green eyes glimmering behind his bangs. "King Midas curse. Everything he touches turns to ash. So, my darling niece," he purred, "why do you have the Prince of the Seelie Court on your back?"

She quickly recounted the story while the gray-haired mortician studied the arrow wound.

"Lucky you found him when you did. Any longer and he certainly would have died. I suppose you haven't heard, but the Seelie Court was attacked just a couple days ago."

She shook her head.

"Well, Snake here and his mother the Queen were separated in the turmoil, and I suppose whoever attacked them had a hit-and-kill mission set up. I haven't heard from anyone from the Seelie Court since, so it's difficult to gauge whether or not they haven't been completely destroyed. Even if they haven't, I think it safest for him if we keep him here. Yes, the iron in the air will slow his healing, but few faeries dare to come here unless exiled, so he should be safe for the time being. I'll take care of Snake here; you run along and get in bed. It's past eleven-thirty."

Haley nodded, then walked off to the bathroom to take a hot shower. She dressed herself quickly in only a tank top and her underwear, then crawled into bed. Just before she nodded off, she thought she heard the door to her room open, but she thought nothing of it.

* * *

Her first waking thought was warmth, then the odd feeling of another being in the room. If her uncle had dared to slip a dead body in her bed again, she would personally murder him. But a dead body wouldn't be warm...or breathing. She opened her eyes, flinching at the sunlight peeking through the curtains, and turned her head, only to squeak in surprise and nearly hit the floor.

There he was, the faery from the night before - what was his name again? Snake? - curled up in her bed and looking perfectly blissful.

Perfectly, blissfully unaware of the fact that he was in a teenage girl's bed when said teenage girl happened to be in her underwear.

Not to mention the fact that his hand had somehow landed on her bare thigh.

Not to mention the fact that his hand was unnaturally warm.

Not to mention the fact that he was unnaturally, inhumanly beautiful - or at least as unnaturally, inhumanly beautiful as a snake-skinned faery could get.

Not to mention the fact that her hormones were going out of control as it was.

She heard the cordless phone in the hallway ring, and thought about getting it, but then remembered the hot hand on her thigh and thought better of it. After a moment, her uncle shuffled into the hall, spoke quietly for a moment, then opened the door to her room.

"It's Ronald-" he started, then noticed her cherry-red face and snickered.

"Do you like the little surprise I left you last night~?"

"Like it?! Uncle, I near about had a heart attack! Why did you have to bring him in here, anyway? Couldn't he have slept in the guest room?"

"Oh, but it would have been cruel to make him sleep in a strange room in a strange place all alone. By the way, you two didn't do anything _unbecoming, _did you~?"

"What the-? No! I didn't even know he was in here until just a moment ago!"

"Oh well. Anyway, Ronald's on the phone."

She wriggled out from underneath Snake's hand, took the phone from her uncle, and shoved him out the door. "Hello?"

"Hey, Mouse!"

"Hey, Ronnie. Why didn't you just call my cell?"

"I did. Like, three times. So anyway, what happened? Undertaker leave another dead body in your bed?"

"It wasn't dead, but it was a body." She quickly relayed the events of the past night.

Ronald whistled. "You two didn't do anything last night, did you?"

"No, we didn't. I hardly know him." In a quieter tone she added, "But he's drop-dead gorgeous."

"I hope that's your definition of it and not Grell's. Can I meet him?"

"No - I mean, not yet. He's probably uncomfortable here enough as it is. Give him time, and then you can meet him."

"Okay. You got the tuneage?"

"Got it."

"Great! Should I pick you up?"

"Stop trying to act like we're still together. We broke up almost a year ago."

"Would you be saying that if I said I got you something?"

"If it's a severed head, I'm going to be very upset."

"It's a gun rack."

"A gun rack? A gun rack. I don't even own _a gun, _let alone many guns that would nessessitate an entire rack. What am I gonna do with a gun rack?"

"I don't know! I was thinking you could use it as a display-thingie, like for jewelry or arrows you find in the backs of beautiful faery men."

"Shut up. I'll be in front of the coffee shop in about thirty minutes."

"I was kidding about the gun rack, anyway. See ya there, Mouse!"

Haley sighed and hung up, then became aware that someone was watching her. Snake had woken up, and was looking at her with feverish green eyes. He had long, silvery eyelashes - the kind of lashes boys didn't care about and girls - and Grell - would kill to have. Leave it to her to notice something like that now. It wasn't until she remembered that she was in her underwear did she squeak and try to usher him out of her room before she truly died of a heart attack. It was one thing to just have him in her bed; it was another story entirely to have him looking at her in her underwear when they weren't in a sexual relationship. Especially since he didn't look much older than she was.

Especially since she never wore tank tops to bed with a bra on underneath.


End file.
